Sunday, December 06, 2009

Nagging Discomfort About the Afghanistan Plan

This is really eating at me. In Iraq, we attempted a "surge" and it worked quite well. As Afghanistan has deteriorated, President Obama has seemingly come to the conclusion that another similar "surge" (albeit with many fewer troops) is just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, Afghanistan isn't very similar to Iraq. Iraq was downright civilized in comparison to Afghanistan. While I think history has shown that massive (and 80,000 troops doesn't count as massive) buildups in Afghanistan do not work, I'm also quite skeptical that aping the Iraq strategy in smaller scale is going to accomplish anything but unecessary American deaths. I find this president quite lacking in military curiosity when it comes to this decision.

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